Modern dairies are very effective and efficient milk product producing facilities. Effectively, the days of a few dozen cows being milked by hand have become a part of history within the dairy industry. For example, today's commercial dairy has an average of about 1,000 lactating cows. In California's Kern County the average dairy has over 1,500 cows.
Milk handling and processing have been similarly industrialized. For example, in a modern dairy milking cows travel on paved floor paths to and from the milking parlor. Manure collected in these aisles, as well as in the milking parlor itself, is systematically washed down into a holding tank or lagoon and then disposed of by a variety of methods. Although a small amount of the manure is sold to neighboring farms or for commercial use as bagged manure, this is a very small percentage and therefore not very economical for the dairy. As a result, the disposal of this manure has become an environmental nightmare for areas of intensive dairy agriculture, as well as a regulatory nightmare for the farmers. In particular these large holding lagoons create noxious odors, they attract flies and present paths for the spread of pathogens both to the animals on the farm, as well as their human handlers and the general population.
In short, while the production end of a modern dairy is very efficient, the effluent end is not. Accordingly, a system is needed that will not only modernize the efficiency of manure waste disposal, but accomplish this in an economic and environmentally sound manner.